It was originally set up in South Yorkshire in 2009 when four local councils – Barnsley, Doncaster, Sheffield and Rotherham – wanted to tackle local air quality issues caused by transport, focusing on HGVs, buses, coaches and vans. They swiftly realised that many fleet operators were already making progress in reducing their environmental impact, and wanted to recognise their efforts, but at the same time provide expert and practical advice on how to make improvements. As a result ECO Stars was born.

Since then, ECO Stars has gone from strength to strength and recently broadened its remit to include a scheme for taxis and private hire vehicles. It has now been adopted by many other council areas in the UK including York, Edinburgh and Warrington as well as several cities across Europe. In total, the individual schemes have more than 500 members with 14,000+ vehicles.